Gowen, Michigan.
Typical home $306,586 (+7.2% in a year). Grand Rapids-Kentwood, MI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$901 (+127%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $20,642 +7%
- $285,944$306,586 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $61,925 +25%
- $244,662$306,586 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Gowen$1,609
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in Gowen, MI rose 7.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Gowen, Kent County, Michigan
The Census does not count Gowen on its own, so the figures here are Kent County's. Half the county's households earn more than $82,631 a year and half less; 10% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 70% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 30% are rented. Unemployment in Kent County was 4.3% in August 2026, and the county had 0.4% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Kent County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Gowen is a community in Kent County, in western Michigan. Across the county, more homes are lived in by their owners than by renters. Winters are cold and snowy, summers are warm, and rain falls through much of the year.
Work. Residents across Kent County work in schools, hospitals and social care, manufacturing, professional and business services, and retail. Jobs grew slightly last year, and unemployment is lower than it was a year earlier. Commutes are fairly short, and a modest share of workers work from home.
Things to do. Cowden Lake, a lake, is a short drive away. Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, a botanical garden, is a longer drive away. The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, a museum, is also a longer drive away.
Report a mistake
- 256,648households
- 35.9median age
- 41%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
- 21 mintypical commute
- 14%work from home
What people in Kent County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Kent County had 417,408 jobs in 2025, 0.4% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 31° and lows near 13°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 56°. About 73 inches of snow and 37 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Greenville Nne weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Kent County
- AcrisureInsurance agencies18,488
- Corewell Health Grand Rapids HospitaGeneral hospital9,199FTE
- Trinity Health Grand RapidsGeneral hospital3,221FTE
- Access Business GroupDetergents manufacturing2,775
- Metropolitan HospitalGeneral hospital2,643FTE
- Kent CompaniesFoundation, building, poured concrete, contractors2,472
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage2,440
- Corewell Health Place Loc0096-corewell Health PlaceAdministration of human resource programs2,271
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 1,143 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 184,795 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Strong windVery high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Kent County, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Kent County and the Grand Rapids-Kentwood, MI metro.
Gowen home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Gowen$306,586
- Michigan$263,760
- United States$366,157
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Gowen12
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Gowen6
Zip codes with a Gowen address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Gowen — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.